Vampire: The Masquerade - Redemption

This game might be old enough to buy alcoholic beverages (at least in the EU) and to act in adult movies, but boy, the storytelling and the atmosphere are still one of the best in the action/RPG genre. The dialogues and voice acting are simply amazing, the story is top-grade, vivid, with no cheap Twilight clichés. You really get hooked on it in no time, even if you are not particularly interested in the horror genre. I especially liked the medieval part of the game which intertwines fiction with historical settings. The gameplay is quite linear, but some dialogue choices enable you to influence the outcome of certain situations and ultimately the whole game. The number of usable items (weapons, armor, etc.) is just huge, ranging from different types of medieval swords, daggers and bows to modern day assault rifles, pistols, among with some pretty cool unique items. Different weapons are good against different foes (e. g. pistols won't do much damage to a vampire, but human enemies can be popped easily with them), which compels you to apply different tactics. "Magic", or as called in-game, disciplines form an important part of the game. There are a lot of different disciplines that you can learn, although there are some, which are effectively the same. Different disciplines require different skills, so you are advised to strengthen your party members according to the role you want to impose on them in your party. The levels are cleverly designed and they really require to utilize your whole party with their various skills. The game is not too difficult, although there are some really though enemies and bosses. The graphics are simply amazing for a game developed almost 20 years ago. The animations are neat (vampires collapsing to ash, beheadings during swordfights, blood splashes) and there are fantastically designed monsters and levels, not to mention the beautifully rendered cutscenes. One of my first games ever to play as a kid and I still love it. Thank you Nihilistic!

If you like the Vampire Masquerade RPG setting, the referencing game elements will suck you right in and it is most likely a 5/5 game for you. For me, I get annoyed by the time it takes to regularly suck a vampire dry and it is a 3/5 for me. The story is a Romeo&Julia-variant, the art design still looks good today and the music is non-existent. The different vampire clans are represented and the strange in-setting things such as Embrace are demonstrated adequately. What kills the game for me is the constant need to replenish the blood gauges to the point it starts to feel like Infusion Manager 2000. The problem is that the AI allies spam their blood gauges half-empty against some push-over enemies. Technically you can set the AI to not cast blood spells, though IT WILL CAST THEM ANYWAY. The group AI is therefore FUBAR. Some game veterans usually play the game solo without the AI characters to minimize the problem, which makes some encounters super hard as some mage vampires such as Tremere Lord that will cast immobilizing spells until you die when soloed and Tzimisce that will cast Prison of Ice (read: the most broken spell ever) until you die. At the end of Vyserad Castle, you are forced to fight three Tzimisces at once and they are going to straight up kill you if soloed. Needless to say, playing the game can be a painful experience. Prepare to die often. Guess what happens if you run out of blood? You die. You still have a separate HPs, so frankly the whole "you need both health AND blood to not die" setting feels quite idiotic to me. I played the game until the time skip. It was too hard to maintain interest when there is a secret vampire excavator society that arms its specialists with stuff like guns and flamethrowers that do not significantly hurt vampires. Even the end boss is a winged thing with a lot of health as if outsourced to Game Cliche Factory. Still, the game is a cheap way to quickly immerse yourself in the Vampire Masquerade setting.

I bought this game when it was new and still have it (the soundtrack was awesome). The story was rich and struck a strong resonance with me. I actually felt for the characters. To clarify this is a separate story and is before Bloodlines. That said the game came with a lot of extras, including Storyteller tools to create your own stories and run your friends through it. The base game and story is compelling. Gameplay did suffer from some camera and UI issues...but they were not crippling. Even given it's age the graphics are remarkably well-done. The music is rich and well paced with transitions from glacial for peaceful interludes to more heavy gothic with a beat for boss fights. Definitely one of the top 10 RPGs you've never played.

This game is brilliant. it tells a story through the ages. a human-vampire story with a lot of intresting details. (Golem Quest). I loved this game when I first played it as a kid and was massively dissapointed when Bloodlines came out. it had none of what made Vampire the masquarde such an awesome game. If you lives vampires and rpgs, get this game! There's even fan patches out there for it and a few mods. The story alone is worth it

It's a great game with an outstanding story in rich World of Darkness / Vampire: The Masquerade world. I surely recommend it, especially to the fans of the RPG genre. And in case you are having problems running it on your PC using Windows 10, it runs perfectly on Linux in Wine. So get Linux for your PC and play this gem of a game :)